I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time

Summary

From the bestselling author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, powerful insights from 1001 actual days in the lives of high-achieving women.

Balancing work and family life is a constant struggle, especially for women with children and ambitious career goals. It's been the subject of countless books, articles, blog posts and tweets in the last few years, and passions run high in all directions.

Now Laura Vanderkam, the acclaimed time management expert, comes at the "having it all" debate by asking a very practical question. Given that we all have the same 168 hours every week, how do people who do have it all—women with thriving careers and families—use those hours? When you study how such women fit together the pieces of their lives, like tiles in a mosaic, the results are surprising.

If you work 40 hours and sleep 56 (i.e. 8 times 7) that leaves 72 hours for everything else. Vanderkam explains how her subjects use those "everything else" hours; why we work less and have more free time than we think; why it's a myth that successful women get too little sleep; and how women can have demanding jobs, spouses, and kids, and still enjoy a healthy amount of downtime.

She shares the time-logs from 1001 days in the lives of women who make at least $100,000 a year and still make time for their families and friends, for sleep and exercise, and for leisure activities they love. Based on what she learned from the patterns in those time-logs, she provides a framework for anyone who wants to thrive at both work and life.

Reviews

Beautiful assessment and presentation of the lives of women who are experiencing successful management of life and the priorities they choose. I am implementing some of these tips and appreciate the changes I’m seeing!

Excellent book. I fit the demographic of her Mosaic study group, though did not participate. I am inspired to track my time to see how much I fritter away, and also to use pockets of time more productively (or choose not to and consciously relax, if I prefer). I have taken away a lot of great tidbits and will definitely listen again in the future. One thing I didn't love was going to 2 decimal places when discussing how many hours of sleep women in the study got...it was hard to compare the numbers in such detail via audiobook.